The relatonship between the community and the company Ruashi Mining has never been good. This , it submits the community in very bad conditions. Since its establishment, the community has remained under extreme poverty because of suffocation and especially the blockage due to the cessation of artisanal digging activities, Ruashi being a mining environment since ancient times. This pushed young people to operate underground diggers with the complicity of the guards of the company. Often these things fail when the superiors of the guards arise and when there are my expectations between the guards themselves or the guards and the police. This convention usually results in either death or serious injury by live ammunition. It goes without saying that communities live within 80 meters of the company’s facilities. As a result, the company’s mining has a negative impact on communities. The company RUASHI Mining has recovered the drinking water source of the REGIDESO for mining, the capacity of the latter in providing water to the population having decreased moments of great water deficiency shake the communities that yet see the water at less than 100 meters in the concession of the company, then women and children rush into the concession in search of water. For fear that these entrances of women and children in the quest for water do not open breaches to the underground diggers, the guards and the police use violence by releasing one of the dogs to chase the drawers of water and the others by shooting these unfortunate real bullets.

To illustrate this situation consider this case of a real bullet wound fired by the LENIE police. As of 18/09/2017, there has been a shortage of water on this city, and especially that there are no faucets. Usually people go to the Ruashi Mining concession because there is water all the time. On the date mentioned above the guard of the company had received instructions from its hierarchy to prevent the entry of the population to the quest for water. As it happens that this shortage makes two, three or four days without access to water, since water is life; the population had forced to enter to supply water, while the firing sounded to disperse the crowd so a young boy named TSHITSHI suffered a real gunshot injury to the calf of the right leg. Without worrying about the care of the victim, the company abandoned this poor boy to his plight. His family was forced to support the care until wound healing.

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Tunatazama is a southern African network of community organisations living near mines. This network is supported by The Benchmarks Foundation, Southern Africa Resource Watch, Zimbabwe Environment Law Association, Centre for Environment Justice, Associação de Apoio e Assistência Jurídica às Comunidades, Norwegian Church Aid - Tanzania, and the Maluti Community Development Forum.